Inadvertant Advocacy

I'm not generally one to go out and do advocacy stuff, or even much awareness raising stuff. Especially not IRL. In fact, I try not to even make small talk with strangers.

But, yesterday, I was in a good mood, so when the bagger made a comment about my insulated bag for my meat, I went ahead and got into a conversation about eating meat vs. being vegetarian. When I mentioned how I had to switch to a low glycemic index diet because of my insulin resistance, the girl ringing up my stuff got interested. Especially when I mentioned how I found out because we were trying to have a baby, and the IR was effecting my hormones. Turned out she has a family history of type 2 diabetes, and she asked how she could find out if being vegetarian is affecting her. I told her any doctor should be able to order an insulin test, and that was about it.

It wasn't until I got back to the car that I remembered that it's PCOS awareness month. I never used the word PCOS, because I find it easier to just say I have insulin resistance, which effects my hormones, but maybe, because of what I said, that girl will find out more about one of the major aspects of PCOS-related infertility--insulin resistance. So I guess you could say I did a little advocacy. Or at least maybe raised a little awareness. It was easy and felt good, probably because it came up as a natural part of the conversation. :-)

Results

Based on the advice in a comment on my first post about the endo biopsy, I asked my new reproductive immunologists to hold my test results until my scheduled consultation with them. They sent them to me anyway.

I'm no immunologist, but the only results that clearly indicated new information about additional problems were that I have two more inherited clotting disorders. Now I know lots of people lump clotting disorders in with immune issues, but I was actually hoping they would discover another immune disorder or two.

The whole reason I chose to consult with these immunologists was because my intuition is telling me that I need to be more aggressive with immune treatments. I am now left with hoping that they think the immune issues I already know about need more aggressive treatment than what Dr. R. prescribed.

P.S. More detail on how I'm feeling about all this on my private blog. Leave your e-mail address in the comments if you want an invite.

Chicken Fingers--Updated with Pix!

These were delicious! I made gluten-free chicken fingers with almond meal and garbanzo bean flour. The original recipe was in my new favorite cook book: The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook. I haven't bought real, blanched almond flour yet, so I substituted Bob's Red Mill Almond Meal, and a little bit of garbanzo bean flour. Supposedly, if you substitute almond meal for almond flour, you have to add about 1/4 cup of a finer grain flour or starch to compensate and absorb more moisture.

Anyway, whatever the science behind it, they were delicious. :-) The only problem is that, I'm not supposed to eat fried foods, so this is an occasional treat. :( Too bad, otherwise they would be my new favorite food! My DH liked them as well, and he is quite a picky eater. So, an all around success. I served them with the recommended orange ginger sauce, and that was a hit, too.

So, the recipe, including possible modifications, goes something like this:

1 cup almond flour
        OR
1 cup almond meal plus 1/4 cup garbanzo bean flour (or other fine GF flour)
1 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breast
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons grapeseed oil

Note: This recipe makes 4 generous servings. The second time I made it, I used only 1/2 the recipe, and it still fed The Mister and me for lunch and dinner!

Cut the chicken breast in to strips about 1 inch (or less) on each side, and about 3-4 inches long. (Toothpick is for size reference. It's about 2 1/2 inches long.)

Mix the dry ingredients in a shallow bowl--I used a Fiestaware medium cereal bowl. Whisk the eggs in a separate bowl.

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium to medium-high heat--depending on your stove. My stove gets pretty hot at what it calls medium, so I never go above that when I'm cooking with oil.

Dip the chicken strips in the egg, then the flour mixture. At this point you can let the strips sit until whatever else you are having at that meal is just about ready. I had some egg left-over, but hardly any almond flour, as you can see:

Then fry the chicken in the pan until both sides are golden brown.

Be warned, the flour bits flake off the chicken fingers and they burn in the oil after a while. This makes it hard to tell when the chicken is done, after you've done a few rounds, if you're going by the color, because they all look a little blackened. (This was only a problem when I did the full recipe. I had no problem with blackening using the half recipe.) I used thinner strips than Elena recommended--1 inch or less on each side, and I cut the breasts in half width wise first, so the strips were shorter--about 3 inches long on average. I'm glad I did. If I'd cut the strips 2 inches wide, they would probably have been under done.

But other than that, this was an easy recipe, and very yummy. It fits nearly all my current criteria: Gluten- and Dairy-free and the chicken itself was low on the Glycemic Index, although the sauce was a little too sweet for my needs. I'll have to skip the agave nectar next time I try it. Or maybe try something else entirely. Sour and spicy instead of sweet and sour. Lemon Ginger sauce sounds like an interesting thing to try. With more ginger. Hmm.

More Waiting

I finally got the call I was waiting for--all my test results are in! Yay!

So now *they* have my results . . .  but I don't.

And the next available consult is on . . . wait for it . . .  October 13th.

Yeah. I have to wait another 4 weeks to actually talk to someone. Which *sucks*. I'm glad the waiting period is defined, and not open-ended, but I wish it wasn't so long. I was hoping to start TTCAL again in October. Now it will probably be November at the earliest before we can start. :-(

So, in the meanwhile, while I wait, I'm planning some posts on food. I'm trying to figure out how to get variety in my diet while staying low GI and gluten and dairy free. It's hard, but I'm slowing finding the resources I need. Look for recipes and cookbook recommendations in the upcoming weeks!

P.S. Thanks so much for the affirmations on my last post. I really appreciated all of you who recognized how big a deal it is for me to accept that this is my journey so I can shift my energy into fighting to bring a baby into my life, forever.

Accepting that this is the Path We're On

I've realized, over the past couple of days, that I really have accepted that IF/RPL are now and forever a part of my life. I've stopped fighting the facts and started fighting for a baby. The difference between fighting against what is, and fighting to get what I want is huge. It makes this whole experience easier to live with.

Not that I'm glad to be a habitual aborter (don't you just *love* that phrase?). Knowing that, without medical intervention, my body will efficiently kill off any baby I manage to conceive is a major blow to my self image. But constantly saying to myself, "I don't want this to be my life," doesn't get me any closer to my bigger goal of being the mother to at least one living child. Resisting immune testing and treatment because I don't want to have to deal with the inherent risks and costs doesn't get me any closer to having a live baby, either.

As I accept that I need medical help to stay pregnant, and as I accept that the risks of an untreated condition are worse than the risks of a treated one, then the process of getting diagnosed and making a treatment plan becomes more hopeful than scary. My hope of having a full term pregnancy that results in a live baby is now in modern medicine. And I am ready to pursue every option that might reasonably increase my chances of meeting that goal.

"We Want Your Story"

The organization that runs the music program where I'm a docent wants to collect their docents' "stories" for an advertising campaign. I wonder if they want mine . . .

I saw an advertisement to become a music docent the month after my second miscarriage. I was looking for alternative ways to bring children into my life, since creating them in the usual way wasn't working so well for me, so I signed up. The training was one of the best and worst experiences I have every had. Learning to teach music, pretending to be children, getting to actually *play* the games and sing the songs we'd be teaching, was wonderful! I had so much fun with that part of it. The problem was that my fellow trainees were all either mothers (or grandmothers) or bright-eyed naive young women with children of their own "sometime" in their future. I wasn't talking about my miscarriages freely. I was too afraid of getting overloaded with unsolicited advice. So I didn't make any connections, just felt bitter and envious of all these lucky mothers I had to spend several hours a week with for 2.5 months.

I made exactly one friend, and she was the docent coordinator. She was sympathetic, and having her know my situation helped me through some rough parts of getting started in the classroom. That was the other complication. The teacher of classroom I was assigned to was ill for several months, and I ended up having to work with 3 or 4 different subs during that time. Communications were sometimes difficult, and I never knew who to expect when I showed up. At least the teachers communicated with each other, so they usually knew to expect me, but one time, even that message didn't get through!

In the midst of all of this confusion, I had my third miscarriage and missed a few weeks of teaching due to that, and then having the flu. The kids were the reason I kept going. Teaching them was a joy, partly because I love music, but also because it gave me 30 minutes out of my week when I wasn't thinking about my infertility, when I felt worthwhile and valued. It also was a wonderful way for me to stay in touch with why I love children and want some of my own. When I see kids with their parents at the supermarket, I focus on the parents. I see the kids almost as possessions or status symbols that I don't have and they do. But when I am in the classroom, I see the children as the individuals they are. I got to know the children in my class. I tried to pay attention to each of them, to help the rowdy ones participate appropriately and the shy ones come out of their shells.

I was able to bring music to 20 children who might not have had it otherwise, and to see their smiling faces every week kept me going through the rough times. Now I've had a total of five miscarriages, and I'm hoping that new testing will yield new information to create a better treatment plan. I hope to stay pregnant the next time I try. But no matter what happens on my family building journey, I'm going to keep teaching music, because it brings a ray of sunshine into the darkness that is my current life.

I don't think that's the kind of story they are looking for. They want to hear about the music, and the cute things kids say and do. They want to inspire other people to become docents. But for me, the experience was so much more. It was a challenge and a lifeline all rolled into one. The music was a vehicle for me to interact with children in a scenario that was emotionally safe for *me*. And their request inspired me to tell my music docenting story, even if I don't end up telling it to them.

Crackers!

So today, after reading the second installment in Keiko's Voices of PCOS series I got inspired to make crackers--which I have been missing and craving ever since I went wheat free last summer (I only went fully gluten free this spring, but I've been wheat free for over a year). My first attempt was these chickpea crackers, because I happened to have all the ingredients. The were surprisingly tasty and addictive. I can't wait to try the cheese crackers Kristen recommended--once I get some dairy-free cheese to try them with!